Forum - View topicINTEREST: MediBang Allegedly Pays Manga Translators 120 Yen Per Page
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cookiemanstah
 Posts: 546 |
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this is why piracy runs rampant
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Thespacemaster
Posts: 1108 |
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It bogles my mind how in the world do these companies even are allowed to set the payroll so low?
What is the point of all the specific requirements their toy studied and worked hard for to get simple pocket change of a pay? A Janitor with no education would get a better pay than this. Corporate abuse at its finest. |
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HdE
Posts: 50 |
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The part about letterers being paid $1 per page was of particular interest to me. Having worked in the business of lettering comics professionally since 2010, I've long known that manga letterers get some of the worst rates in the business.
For perspective: I used to regularly get offers to letter US indie comics for $5.00 per page - just about £3.00 in my native GBP. Sometimes, those offers would be accompanied with rather forcefully worded sentiments such as 'and not a penny more' or 'this rate is non negotiable.' Which was fine for me. Because I'd simply decline the job. Anything less that $15 per page for that kind of work is joke money. And even $15 ought to be an entry level wage. Lettering is a far more technically involved process than most people give credit for. It really is sad that there seems to be so little respect afforded folks doing the kind of work the article mentions. I can't imagine the challenges translating manga must pose for somebody. And I certainly can't imagine putting up with them for 120 yen. |
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GainaxFanboy
Posts: 60 |
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Scanlators get paid more when commissioned to work on a project.
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LegitPancake
 Posts: 1294 Location: Texas, USA |
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Still better than Digital Manga Publishing, which is still selling "Classmates" digitally, which they never compensated the person who translated it a single cent. Seven Seas is now publishing it in print and ebook with a new translation, but for some reason DMP's version still remains on the Kindle store.
https://twitter.com/merumeruchann/status/1347256504165031942 |
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Deacon Blues
Posts: 383 Location: Albuquerque, NM |
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You expect to be paid $3,000 to letter a 200-page comic book? If that entire comic book has translated sound effects, sure, maybe, but in some instances where the sound effects are not translated, then your rate of $15 a page is way out of line. At that rate, you're making more money than the actual translator... I honestly don't understand why people are surprised at the rates that some of these companies put out. If you don't like the rates, then decline the job. Someone, somewhere will pick up the work because they want to gain experience, even if it's for pennies on the dollar. This practice is no different from online translation websites that charge $0.04 per character to be translated (which is utterly laughable). The plot twist with that rate is that if they set the bar low, they're going to get low quality. No one will be any wiser, because they will just assume that everything is hunky-dory with the translation and whatnot. Not to be in defense of the company though, but I suppose it also depends on exactly what the comic was that needed to be translated. Was it something that had very little dialogue? If so, that would almost make sense. But if it was something normal, then that would pose a problem for most people. |
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AmpersandsUnited
Posts: 633 |
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Are you saying people only pirate to 'protest' translator payrates or something? I don't think this is why people pirate.
It always comes down to someone is willing to do the job for less pay. This applies to every industry pretty much. English manga is already expensive as it is, usually at least 3 times as expensive as the Japanese tankobon. I can only imagine how much a volume would cost if there was even more overhead to cover. |
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DRosencraft
Posts: 665 |
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Want to figure out the imbedded cost per page? Take the sale price of said manga, divide that price by the number of pages, then multiply that by the expected total number of sales; that gives you the cap on what they can afford to spend on everything that goes into that one page before they start selling that manga at a loss. That means translation, typesetting, editing, and any associated distribution of cost towards printing. As Deacon Blues pointed out, one person suggesting $15 per page means a 200-page book would dedicate $3000 to that one person, not to mention any other people associated with that work, or the cuts from royalties to the writer, publishers, promoters, taxes...
Unofficial scanlators have a ton less overhead because they don't have all those other parties they have to give a piece of the pie to. As for the job listing, newcomers to the job market may not know better, but anyone who has had a job before will know that, unless you're in a job with a pre-negotiated contract in place where you're literally filling a spot, negotiation of compensation is a big part of the process. Most jobs don't even bother listing a starting wage precisely because that is an expected part of the hiring process. Figuring out what is common and reasonable for the position is part of the job search process. Again, unless inexperienced in the job hunting field, or personally uncomfortable with the process, you should go into the interview expecting that by the end you will be putting forward your own request of what your compensation will be. |
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Replica_Rabbit
 Posts: 354 Location: Portland |
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If that was true, people wouldn't go to the Manga aggregator sites (those sites are way more popular than the fan scanlation sites) that basically steal from the fan scanlations. I think the aggregator sites are way worst since they don't pay anyone for the work, they just grab it from a fan scanlation site or the official site Anyway, this is awful and MediBang (and 99% of companies) should pay it workers better. This should not be allow |
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GainaxFanboy
Posts: 60 |
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Because those same scanlators post it on the aggregate themselves. For example mdex-the largest manga aggregate site only allows scanlators to upload their work. |
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Lactobacillus yogurti
 Posts: 845 Location: Latin America |
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Speaking as a translator, and as someone who knows a translator who worked with manga, people always think that this is an easy gig, but the subtleties of language require a lot of preparation, research and understanding.
So reading something like this makes me feel somewhat insulted. I understand that some people do it for free as a hobby, but when it's supposed to be a legal, paid thing, they should truly consider all the effort they make and pay accordingly. I was lucky that in the translation job I got, I was being paid 20 euros per video, and that helped me pay things off during the pandemic. These news REALLY tick me off. |
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Replica_Rabbit
Posts: 354 Location: Portland |
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Isn't that the only Manga aggregate site doing that? I would like other aggregate sites to do the same, but they don't. I check five of the popular (besides the one you mention) aggregate sites and all of them have manga from the official source, so I don't think they asking the scanlators for the Manga |
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Яeverse
 Posts: 1140 Location: Indianapolis |
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How cheap must Shueisha be to need medibang to handle shonenjump titles on mangaplus and charge only 120y.
[Though since mangaplus has no money making model, perhaps Shueisha can't afford more than the bare minimum] No one has proposed a way for the companies to still break even and for the people that work for them to make a living wage. Medibang titles on amzn don't get much publicity and arent exactly topping the sales charts so theres only so much they can do. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4575 |
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This is a terrible attitude to have. People have value, their skills have value, and they should not be undervalued by a disgusting race-to-the-bottom mentality that deliberately devalues them. Late-stage capitalism is a foul thing. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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Why, because manga pirates believe that translations should be free (and the work is thus worthless), and that 120 yen/page is too much? If anything, it's piracy that's devalued translation work, due to the large number of fansubbers/scanlators willing to do the work for free. And while plenty of pirates love to cry crocodile tears over underpaid translators (as we saw with CR), they also don't have any compunctions against enjoying the work of those translators for free. Or against bootleg streaming/reading sites that misappropriate the work of those exploited translators for their own profits. Last edited by Zalis116 on Fri Jan 22, 2021 11:35 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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